The latest installment in the mini-anthology series Short Treks —“The Brightest Star”—is the first of these new stories not to take place on the starship Discovery, but, so far, it’s probably the installment that will be the most satisfying for hardcore fans. Not only do we find out how and why Mr. Saru joined Starfleet, there’s also a huge surprise cameo from a very familiar character at the very end of the episode. But the actions of that person, particularly in relation to Saru’s species, will bring up a very old Trekkie question: was the Prime Directive violated here?
Huge Spoilers for Short Trek’s third episode, “The Brightest Star” follow. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know what happens.
Though the entire story of “The Brightest Star” is set on Saru’s mysterious home planet of Kaminar, the universe outside plays a pivotal role in the episode. It turns out that the Kelpiens are a pre-industrial society incapable of interstellar travel and pretty much enslaved by another, more technology advanced unseen alien race called the Ba’ul who occasionally will beam a few of them up like cattle in a process that the Kelpien religion calls “the harvest.” We never see these unseen alien butchers, but the relationship between the two species mimics that of the Morlocks and Eloi from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, with Kelpiens like Saru as the “prey species.” This holds true even in the Mirror Universe episodes, where the Terran Empire was like the Ba’ul here, and kept Kelpiens as livestock.
But Saru doesn’t want to remain livestock—even though he doesn’t really know what happens to his brethren after they are taken. After stealing some technology from his captors (or farmers?) Saru starts texting—presumably via subspace—with an unseen ally. If you remember “Pen Pals” in The Next Generation (the one where Data corresponds with an alien child named Sarjenka) it’s kind of like that, only the audience doesn’t know who Saru is talking to until the very end. After asking for help, a Starfleet shuttle shows up, and out steps Lt. Philippa Georgiou, an officer (but not yet the captain) on the USS Shenzhou. She tells Saru that he can leave with her, but because of “many complicated rules,” he can never return to his home planet. She also mentions that the Kelpiens are a “pre-warp” civilization. In the larger canon of Star Trek, this should mean that Georgiou couldn’t have gone there in the first place, right? Didn’t she totally violate the Prime Directive? Data did in “Pen Pals” and Picard was pissed. Is Georgiou’s captain (whoever that is) also super pissed?
Briefly, the Prime Directive is basically a rule all Starfleet people have in all of Star Trek which prevents them from messing with a lesser-developed culture. In reality, it’s mostly a plot device to create a moral problem for futuristic enlightened humans to feel guilty about stuff they can’t do anything about. Weirdly, Star Trek Into Darkness has the most simple example of a Prime Directive plot: When a volcano threatens to wipe out an entire primitive alien race on a random planet, Kirk decides to save them by using advanced technology. The caveat here is that this is only okay if the natives never see them. Of course, they do, and that film implies that the native aliens now worship the Enterprise as a God. Now, according to real-deal Prime Directive, the Enterprise in Into Darkness shouldn’t have been there in the first place, because messing with the natural development (including weather and volcanos!) of another planet is a huge no-no. And in “Pen Pals,” Data’s correspondence with Sarjenka is similar: he was straight-up violating the Prime Directive because her impending doom was caused by nature, not any outside technological interference.
But it’s different in “The Brightest Star,” because the enslavement of the Kelpiens is not part of the natural development of the planet Kaminar. In fact, we don’t even know for sure if Kaminar is their home planet, it could just be a giant farm planet owned by the Ba’ul, and in their jurisdiction of the galaxy. Who knows, maybe in Ba’ul culture, what they do to the Kelpiens is considered ethical to them, the same way we rationalize free-range chickens.
The point is, Georgiou is presumably aware that Saru’s people are being enslaved by a species with an advanced culture, which we’re led to believe are from a different planet. This makes the situation a little bit more like the original series episode “A Private Little War,” or the film Star Trek: Insurrection. In both stories, there were two factions on a planet, but the technology distribution and basic civil rights were all out of wack. Captains Kirk and Picard (respectively) took up literal arms, personally, to help the less aggressive side of the conflict not get completely screwed.
The big difference in “The Brightest Star,” of course, is that Saru’s people are willing participants of this enslavement. “When my people look up at the stars they see only death, and they welcome it. They do not question it,” Saru says at the beginning of the episode. And this is probably the element that made what Georgiou did a little trickier. Because this is seemingly a choice on the part of the Kelpiens, the situation is similar to The Next Generation episode “Half a Life,” in which Lwaxana Troi falls in love with a man from a species of aliens who commit ritual suicide at fifty-years-old. (It’s like Logan’s Run, only for olds.) In that episode, Picard was appalled that Lwaxana would try to interfere with those customs, but there wasn’t a legal Prime Directive problem, because the ritual suicide aliens totally were part of the Federation and had warp drive.
It’s also not entirely clear if the Prime Directive really exists at this point in Trek history. When I reached out to one of the writers of “The Brightest Star”—Erika Lippoldt—she told me:
“In the writers’ room, we’ve talked about how these events took place at a point in time when the Prime Directive was not so well-defined, or at the very least not as strictly enforced (compared to The Next Generation). Therefore, more leeway was given for Starfleet’s commanding officers to use their discretion as to how they enforce it.”
Lippoldt’s statement is backed-up by canon, too. In “A Private Little War,” which takes place in 2268, Kirk makes reference to having visited the planet when he was way younger, and the people there knew he was from space. Presumably, at the time Georgiou makes contact with Saru, Kirk is probably a cadet. So, the short answer to all of this could simply be: Starfleet was way more loosey-goosey about the Prime Directive in the decades before the original series, which is when this all happens.
Further, Lippoldt asserts that”Georgiou didn’t violate the Prime Directive so much as make an exception to it.” Which means, Lt. Georgiou’s Prime Directive problem in “The Brightest Star” is unique within Star Trek.
In some ways, it might apply because the Kelpiens are seemingly acting of their own free will, and it’s possible this arrangement with the Ba’ul is part of their “natural development.” On the other hand, it’s very clear that this culture is oppressive, promotes intellectual stagnation, and removes free will from the individual, even if the majority wants to keep getting beamed-up and eaten. It’s an interesting thought experiment, and when Georgiou tells Saru “you caused quite a stir,” it’s perhaps the most tantalizing detail in the episode.
So many great Star Trek stories have dealt with debates about the Prime Directive, and it would have been wonderful to hear more from Georgiou on these points. But even in focusing on Saru, “The Brightest Star” took Star Trek’s well-trodden non-interference storyline boldly where its never gone before.
Ryan Britt is an entertainment journalist and longtime contributor to Tor.com. He is the author of Luke Skywalker Can’t Read and Other Geeky Truths and the entertainment editor for Fatherly. He lives in Portland, Maine with his wife and daughter.
The connection between the Ba’ul and the Kepliens definitely needs looking into. The Prime Directive is not intended to allow the exploitation of non-space travelling people by those with advanced technology. In fact the whole point is to prevent that.
Classic Trek didn’t see visiting more primitive cultures and telling them the truth about where they come from as violating the Prime Directive. Even trade with such planets was permissable.
So we’re supposed to believe that a person from a pre-warp society could just show up and join Starfleet? Seriously? Even as smart as Isaac Newton was, he wouldn’t just waltz into Starfleet. And why would Starfleet let a member of a pre-warp society join up in the first place? Its like today’s US Navy time travelling back to Viking days and recruiting guys to row.
Its silly.
If the Kelpians are indeed submitting to the Ba’ul and the Harvest of their own free will, then conversely Saru should also have the free will to choose otherwise. If he is the one requesting rescue, on his own volition rather than Giorgiou’s, does that still become a matter for the Prime Directive, or is it more in the nature of responding to a distress call? If he had found some other way to escape the planet, and they found him floating in space in an escape pod or whatever, would that eliminate the Prime Directive question entirely?
This seems like a situation where placing an interdiction seems like a reasonable idea. The Ba’ul are space cannibals that are harvesting a less advanced civilization. That should throw up every possible red flag in the book. They’re either going to start “harvesting” your own colonies or kidnapping your personnel for production and consumption deeper within their territory. Abandoning these people to this fate is unjustifiable, and can be done without them ever being aware of what’s happening.
“In “A Private Little War,” which takes place in 2268, Kirk makes reference to having visited the planet when he was way younger, and the people there knew he was from space.”
Rather, one person, Kirk’s friend Tyree, found out somehow that Kirk was from space, but Kirk swore him to secrecy about it.
Otherwise, you’re right that the Prime Directive was more flexibly enforced in TOS; it was understood as being about protecting civilizations’ right to self-determination, not some fanatically rigid rule that required letting a civilization die in order to avoid harming them, which is an insane contradiction in terms. “Pen Pals” is a compelling episode, but the damage it did to the concept of the Prime Directive was unfortunate (though “Homeward” was far worse). In “For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky,” Kirk explicitly said “The people of Yonada may be changed by the knowledge, but it’s better than exterminating them.” As portrayed in TOS, the Directive arguably compelled Starfleet to interfere in order to remove other sources of outside interference so that a society would be freed to govern itself and develop naturally. Which means that by TOS logic, Starfleet would be justified in stopping the Ba’ul from exploiting the Kelpiens.
If the Kelpien religion supports Kelpiens seeing themselves as cattle, does this therefore represent the views of ALL Kelpiens? Their entire race has one religion? No atheists, no doubters? Of course they do, and here’s one example. So where does the Prime Directive draw that line? I hope it doesn’t view an entire species as a collective with one will.
The lack of interstellar warp power is a more clear means of determining where not to interfere but the above consideration would still make good episode fodder, with a handy metaphor to the world’s refugee crisis.
@6/cecrow: In the case of a clash of ideologies within a given species, the main thing the Prime Directive would require is not to take sides, to let them work out the dispute for themselves rather than helping one side win. The thing that TNG and later series lost track of is that non-interference is not the end in itself, merely the means to the end of respecting every culture’s own agency and self-determination. Whatever choices they make need to be their own.
The idea of warp drive as the dividing line for making contact wasn’t introduced until exactly halfway through ST:TNG, in the episode “First Contact.” And I’ve always disliked it, because it’s unreasonably simplistic. The original idea is that you don’t reveal the existence of aliens to species that don’t already know about them, and presumably the writers of “First Contact” assumed that a species wouldn’t make contact with aliens until it invented warp drive, but that’s nonsensical. Logically, a technological civilization would invent radio telescopes, or sensitive enough optical telescopes to detect biosignatures and technological signatures on alien worlds, long before it invented warp drive.
Moral of the story: when things are bad at home, always take a ride from a stranger. ;-)
In Star Trek you can always tell when they’re going to violate the Prime Directive. They mention the Prime Directive. Simple as that. The comment that the PD is a plot device is spot on.
As far as preventing natural disasters, why doesn’t Starfleet have monitoring stations around all the planets that the PD is supposed to protect? That way, any meteors, volcanos, plagues, etc. can be wiped out before they have an effect. Is it only right to prevent such natural disasters during the brief time a ship happens to e visiting the system? Does Starfleet really go around patting themselves on the back for the 1% of disasters they prevent.
“A starship captain’s most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive.” – The Omega Glory. (Ironic since Kirk ordered Scotty to exterminate all life on Eminiar VII simply to save Kirk & Spock after the Enterprise ignored the huge “Keep Out – This Means You!” sign on the edge of the star system in A Taste of Armageddon)
“No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet. No references to space, or the fact that there are other worlds, or more advanced civilizations.” – Bread and Circuses
“The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules; it is a philosophy… and a very correct one. History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous.” – Symbiosis
It seems unfortunate to have Saru as the only refugee from his relatively technologically primitive species in the Federation rather than have the Kelpians be a full fledged member civilization or even a neighboring one.
FYI: You’ve written “Keplien” instead of “Kelpien” in a few instances.
That said, I’m not certain the Kelpien are “willing” participants, because they might have been groomed to behave like this. The Ba’ul either positioned themselves as their gods, or took advantage of their myths to pose as gods. If that’s the case, sayign they’re willing participants is like saying a minor in a sexual relationship with an adult is a willing participant: consent is tainted.
@3 – EC: That too.
I don’t understand how taking Saru off world is different from breaking the Prime Directive. If the Prime Directive is supposed to protect pre-warp societies from disruptions to their natural development, isn’t Saru part of that development?
His curiosity and intelligence grew out of that society. It would be the same as if aliens took Leonardo da Vinci or Isaac Newton away because they were more intelligent, therefore holding our culture back.
It is possible that if Saru stayed, he would have influenced other Kelpians to question the rule of the Ba’ul or some other advancement.
@11 – Fixed, thank you!
@12/Tony: The TNG-era idea that there’s some magic, predestined ideal of a species’s development that needs to be protected from going “off course” to the slightest degree is utter rubbish, a fanatical distortion of what the Prime Directive is supposed to be about. The idea is basically about respecting other people’s right to control over their own lives and decisions, rather than forcing them to do what you want them to do or think they should do. Saru made contact through his own efforts, his own initiative, and it was his free choice as an individual to go with Georgiou. Therefore, accepting his right to do as he chose is entirely consistent with the true spirit of the Directive.
Saru could stay there and question the rule of the Ba’ul, just like a cow can question the meaning of hamburger. Unless there’s some kind of help from the outside, they’re still gonna get eaten.
@14 ChristopherLBennett – Saru made contact through his own efforts, his own initiative, and it was his free choice as an individual to go with Georgiou.
Could you not make the same argument about A Piece of the Action? Instead of a book, Saru had a transmitter (a much more advanced bit of tech than a book) yest Kirk & Company felt it was their duty to basically appoint the Federation as rulers of Sigma Iotia II, albeit in absentia. Kirk decided who would run the planet, who would be second in command, how they would spend their planetary treasury.
Is it simply because of the source of the “contamination”? An Earth ship in one case, from when the Prime Directive didn’t even exist. An unknown race using much more advanced tech in the other case.
In any case, if a member of a PD protected species asks to go with Kirk or whomever, are they obligated to make the case to the Federation/Starfleet to bring them along? Can Kirk make it known that he’s willing to take along passengers or do they have to ask totally by themselves. Kirk doesn’t have to say “Do you want to come with us”, just “We are willing to take passengers if asked”. Would that be a violation?
What about the natives on Nibiru in the reboot movie? Could their drawing of the Enterprise be taken as a request to open communications? Isn’t part of many religions the desire to talk to God? If they’re asking, would the Federation be required to answer?
A piece of the action is a different scenario. The planet was unnaturally influenced by humans and the Crew had to deal with the consequences. Saru acquired the communications device from the Ba’ul.
The second question is interesting and varies based on which era it is applied to. In Kirk’s era, Command Officers have a lot more leeway in decision making because they are on the frontiers with less ready communication lines and backup. Under such situations, Kirk has the privilege to make executive decisions about requests for transport from any civilisation. A group or individual, even from a PD protected planet that makes a request for transport or asylum would be approved or denied entirely at the Kirk’s whim.
Under the TNG era that would get more complicated because communications and back up are much more available. Whilst Picard or Janeway would still have liberty to decide about giving transport or asylum to an individual, they would probably be expected to find alternatives or a way to keep the individual with their people. Groups asking for the same would be ruled on by a Federation or Starfleet council, with the Captain’s able to argue as an arbiter for the group.
In both cases, the request must come first from the individual or group, as for the crew to go to them with an offer would be a breach of PD. Initiation of contact and any choice to go off-planet and leave their people must come from the PD protected race.
With Nibiru. If the people of that planet are physically capable of contacting the Federation, then the chances are (especially given Kirk’s blundering) that the Federation would respond.
I think the thing about being a warp-capable civilisation is that the Federation will not actively seek out contact with pre-warp civilisations, however, I doubt they would ignore communication requests from them. If a civilisation can show that they are ready to join the intergalactic community through actively seeking communication, I’d say that trump’s Starfleet’s “They can warp, let’s say hello!” rule.
@17/Berthulf: You’re right. The problem with TNG’s take on the Prime Directive is that it took a rule that originally meant “Consider the other culture’s agency and right to make its own decisions before you decide what, if any, form of intervention is necessary to preserve that agency” and turned it into “Be rigid and legalistic in avoiding any and all interaction so that you don’t actually have to think or decide anything.” Absolute inflexibility is not an intelligent strategy for dealing with an endlessly complicated universe. Part of a starship captain’s job is to make the difficult and complicated choices out in the field when there’s nobody else around to do it. To interpret the rules and decide when exceptions need to be made, rather than abrogating responsibility and thought by hiding behind the letter of the law.
17. Berthulf – If simply leaving behind a book is unnaturally influencing a society then there should be less contact between worlds, not more. Besides, the Prime Directive was said to not be in force at the time. It’s not like the crew of the Horizon forced everyone on the planet to read the book, the Iotians made the decision by themselves to model their society on The Book. When making contact, can the Federation mention the Federation Charter? Or sexual equality? Or racial harmony? Wouldn’t that mean that the Federation is influencing the culture, just on the way that THEY think is best?
The Nibiru did try to contact the Enterprise, the only way they knew how. By drawing a picture of it. Should they be punished for not having subspace radio? The Capellans didn’t seem to have any advanced technology. Neither did the people on Tyree’s planet.
I’m not sure I’d be able to call The Prime Directive the Federation’s highest law if it was based entirely on a whim. Kirk would be offering asylum or transportation to the young, attractive blondes.
What about Starfleet respecting the laws of the planets they visited. Wesley broke the law of the Edo but Picard thought the law was unfair. But it’s not his place to decide if the laws of the Edo are right or wrong because they’re not his laws. He was the outsider and an uninvited one at that. “Hi, we’re from the Federation but we’re only going to follow your laws that we agree with.”
so starfleet allows the ba’ul to breed and murder sentient beings? and this is the new star trek? what millennial garbage to no longer recognize right from wrong.
std = pure garbage.
I was shouting at the screen at the end. An absolute violation of the prime directive as soon as she said pre warp. I can’t believe how the guardians of Trek are letting this happen.
Such a needless mistake.
@21/Richard: The “pre-warp” rule wasn’t introduced until halfway through TNG. The 23rd-century application of the Prime Directive wasn’t anywhere near as mindlessly legalistic and rigid as the TNG-era version, and was applied more flexibly based on the needs of a given situation.
And “guardians of Trek?” Come on. An ongoing work of fiction is not something to be “guarded” and protected from change. It’s something to be explored and used and played with and taken risks with. A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are for.
TOS second season episode “Bread and Circuses” (Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon)
“No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet. No references to space, or the fact that there are other worlds, or more advanced civilizations.”
Second season “The Omega Glory” (Gene Roddenberry)
“A starship captain’s most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive.”
Note that the above quote comes AFTER Kirk ordered Scotty to kill all the inhabitants of Eminiar VII in “A Taste of Armageddon.” (Robert Hamner and Gene L. Coon). Perhaps it is known as the Kirk Amendment after realizing that he followed the PD as it was at the time and that it needed to be tightened up a bit. Or Kirk is just a hypocrite. Or the PD is simply a plot device and that it doesn’t apply when the writers decide that it doesn’t and that it does when they do, regardless of precedent.
@23/kkozoriz: Intentionally or not, I’d say they were rather consistent about it.
Kirk likes to help people. He sometimes violates the Prime Directive in order to help or save people, usually both his crewmembers and the inhabitants of the planet of the week. It may come across as arrogant or imperialist, but it isn’t selfish. When someone breaks the PD for selfish reasons, the same Kirk is appalled. So, not so much a hypocrite as someone guilty of hyperbole (“a starship captain will give his entire crew”).
@24/Jana: Kirk almost never violated the Prime Directive as it was defined at the time. By the psychotically strict TNG-era interpretation of “Let a whole civilization die rather than admit you exist,” sure, he was “violating” it, but by the saner standards of the TOS era, in terms of how the PD was actually defined in the original show, Kirk was enforcing the Prime Directive by freeing civilizations from other sources of interference.
And yes, sometimes he bent the letter of the law to ensure its spirit, but what people today don’t get is that was part of his job. It wasn’t like TNG where Starfleet Command was always a phone call away and watching over a captain’s shoulder. Often, a starship captain was the one and only Federation authority able to address a crisis, and it was therefore part of a captain’s job description to interpret the laws, to decide how and whether they should apply to a given situation, rather than just blindly following their letter. So Kirk wasn’t “violating” a damned thing. He was doing his job the way it was supposed to be done. I’m so sick of people misinterpreting that.
@25/Christopher: I basically agree, but I tend to assume that freeing civilisations from mind-controlling computers was a borderline case. If it were not so, if the case were abundantly clear, why would Spock remind Kirk of the Prime Directive in “The Return of the Archons”? The way I read their dialogue, Kirk convinced Spock by finding a loophole – a new interpretation of the Prime Directive. Perhaps it stated that they were not allowed to interfere with the growth and the development of other cultures, and Kirk argued that if a culture doesn’t grow or develop, the Prime Directive doesn’t apply.
Anyway, morally I think Kirk usually did the right thing. It can look a bit problematic because he always made his decisions so fast, without spending much time on the planet in question. But then, he was usually forced into action by external circumstances, except perhaps in “A Piece of the Action” and “The Apple”.
@26/Jana: “If it were not so, if the case were abundantly clear, why would Spock remind Kirk of the Prime Directive in “The Return of the Archons”?”
Why do people argue both sides of cases before the Supreme Court? Laws need to be interpreted in cases where the answer is not obvious. And as I said, making that determination is part of a starship captain’s responsibility in situations where there is no higher authority in range. Yes, Spock disagreed with Kirk about whether the Prime Directive applied, just like the sides in a court case can disagree about whether something is legal or constitutional; but it was Kirk’s right and responsibility to make that ruling for himself. That is part of what being a Starfleet captain means — that you have that responsibility to decide how the regulations should be applied in ambiguous or complex situations. That you don’t just blindly, legalistically obey the letter of the law, but you take responsibility for making a decision, because that’s what leadership is. That is not a violation of Kirk’s duties, is it a fulfillment of them.
@27/Christopher: Nicely said! That’s what I meant, that the answer wasn’t obvious. And of course we can assume that his decisions were evaluated at a later time by Starfleet Command; Spock made a comment to this effect in “The Apple”.
It would have been interesting to have a story where Kirk misinterpreted a situation and then had to correct his mistake. “Friday’s Child” is almost that story because when he saved Eleen, he didn’t know that according to her laws she had to die, he thought it was merely Maab getting rid of a potential rival. But in the end, it all turned out for the best.
@28/Jana: Yeah, “Friday’s Child” is the iffiest case. It could be argued that Maab’s murder of Akaar and the resulting threat to Eleen was the result of Klingon interference, in which case Kirk was within his responsibilities to try to minimize the impact of that interference. But it’s possible that Maab would’ve attempted the coup with or without Kras’s presence.
A Piece of the Action. The PD was not in place when the Horizon left The Book. Nobody help a phaser to the head of the Iotians and make them follow the book. Nobody told them that they had to become like the Chicago mobs. They chose for themselves. So Kirk takes it upon himself to establish a (hopefully) benevolent dictatorship with Oxmyx in charge.
If the Horizon had left a copy of the Bible, would Kirk feel the same way? What about a copy of the Federation charter? Mao’s Little Red Book? The Koran? The Torah? The Declaration of Independence?
The Iotians themselves chose how their culture would proceed after contact with the Horizon. If leaving a book behind is interference then all those cultural exchanges we hear of should never take place. Are the Karidian players responsible if a planet decides to pattern themselves after MacBeth?
In A Taste of Armageddon, the Emininans (and presumably the Vendikans) pointedly tell the Federation to stay away. When Fox and Kirk decide to ignore it (Kirk could have refused Fox’s order) and enter the system, they are then placing themselves under the laws of the planets there. When they refuse to follow those laws, Kirk’s response is to order Scotty to kill EVERYONE on the planet. And it was a very near thing that nearly came to pass. How is that not interfering or correcting a previous “contamination”? The Federation was simply looking for a place to establish a base in the area.
Patterns of Force? Yup, obvious contamination because of Gill. Open and shut.
Friday’s Child? Only if you believe that the Klingons are subject to Federation law and that the Capellans are given no right to decide who they will or will not deal with.
@30/kkozoriz: We know that Kirk didn’t really intend to kill everyone on Eminiar, though, because he told Mea before that his intention was to stop the killing. So obviously he didn’t intend to go through with it.
I don’t think the Klingons had anything to do with his action in “Friday’s Child”. Saving Eleen was a gut reaction. It didn’t even make sense – he didn’t have a chance, and they could have killed her immediately after subduing him. They only didn’t do it because she asked to see him die first.
He gave Scotty a two hour deadline and came very close to missing the chance to countermand it. If the Eminians had managed to kill or capture Kirk or if he couldn’t get of his communicator, millions would have died. His intention may have been to stop the war (which he had no right to do in the first place) but the method he used could have ended up killing everyone on the planet. Not to mention the fact that Vendikar found the Eminians in violation of the treaty. They might have ended up doing what Kirk threatened to do.
It was Kirk’s belief that everyone must live by what he considers moral. By what right does he impose his morals on others?
If ever there was a textbook case of someone violating the Prime Directive, this is it.
Kirk didn’t violate the Prime Directive in “A Taste of Armageddon.” Ambassador Fox may have when he ordered Kirk to disregard the keep-away message, but Kirk’s actions were taken after the Eminians had declared their intention to kill the entire crew of the Enterprise, which was essentially an act of war. The PD does not forbid a captain from defending his ship and crew against an attacker.
In fact, the TOS writers’ bible said that the Prime Directive can be disregarded in cases vital to the security of the Federation, though the captain who does so will be expected to defend the decision to Starfleet Command. Interestingly, the first-draft TNG writers’ bible adds that the PD can be suspended when the safety of the starship and crew is jeopardized, which would cover “A Taste of Armageddon.” Although that’s one of many things about the original TNG bible that got ignored later on.
Kirk would be perfectly within his rights to ignore Fox because the order he was given was illegal. The Enterprise was told to stay away, according to the Code 710 –
KIRK: Code seven-ten means under no circumstances are we to approach that planet. No circumstances what so ever.
FOX: You will disregard that signal, Captain.
KIRK: Mister Fox, it is their planet.
FOX: Captain, in the past twenty years, thousands of lives have been lost in this quadrant. Lives that could have been saved if the Federation had a treaty port here. We mean to have that port and I’m here to get it.
KIRK: By disregarding code seven-ten, you might well involve us in an interplanetary war.
FOX: I’m quite prepared to take that risk.
A case could be made that by ignoring the Code 710, the Federation were the ones who declared war. Anan’s actions were totally legal according to the laws of Eminiar VII and Vendikar.
There’s also this from The Omega Glory –
“A starship captain’s most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive.”
What you had was a planetary system that wanted to be left alone, took steps to warn people off and the Federation blatantly violated their rights to self determination in order to establish a treaty port. The Federation doesn’t have to like how these two planets choose to live their lives. Spock specifically says that they have never left their system. So the only people who are in danger are those that ignore the warning that is plainly broadcast.
How is that not interference?
We don’t have to agree but if the Federation is serious about the overwhelming significance of the Prime Directive, how can they claim to be the victims in all of this? Or is it the Federation’s job to ensure that all the planets of the galaxy live according to what the Federation thinks is proper?